


like starlight on snow

by Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome



Series: Hope Carried Long (Cassian/Leia) [5]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Cass and Leia are over 30 so theres no age gap stuff, Cassian Andor-centric, Diaspora, F/M, Fest, Fest as homeland and all the complicated feelings that brings up, Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, Gen, Kid Fic, Space Spanish, everyone is just happy and alive and this is pretty fluffy if im honest, ish the focus is still on the adults
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-13 14:37:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17489846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome
Summary: Cassian realizes his two-year-old daughter has never seen snow. He also realizes, that, just maybe, it's time to return to Fest. Things are never that simple, though, and the past swirls around as much as snow in a storm. Will he find peace? Or are some things too long-frozen to ever be found again?Multi-chapter, part of the Hope Carried Long series, but stands alone!





	1. A Past of Frost

The U-Wing hatch door opens with that familiar soft hiss that Cassian’s heard a thousand times, first in war and now in peace. Or, what passes for peace according to the galaxy. Because… well, because sentient beings can never remain at peace for long, and the darkness of the Empire left too many lasting wounds on too many people for a simple treaty to heal them. He’s even more aware of that now. Not that he’ll tell Leia that. She knows, of course, as well as he does, how fragile, how needy, a thing peace is. She has her consulting work, and he has… work.

And the less said about that, the better. Instead, Cassian lets himself select that good memory, the one that crossed his mind while he’d been out on the task-that-was-not-allowed-to-be-called-a-mission, and he’d had to lock it away, to be thought of later, when he could afford to think pleasant thoughts. It’s enough to make him have, if not a smile, at least no lines of displeasure on his face by the time the hatch door is fully open.

Then, the delighted cry of “Papá! You’re hoooome,” is more than enough to make him truly smile. Esperanza collides with him at a dead run, and he’s glad he’s already left the blaster and holster in his workshop, glad that there’s no trace of any weapons on him when he picks her up, spins her around. She giggles, delightedly. “Again!” He obliges, though he’s glad she’s small, for a two-year-old, but given her mother’s size, well, that’s to be expected. “You’re fluffy!” she pats the old blue parka. “Why?”

“I was somewhere cold, cielito.” Cassian settles her on his shoulders, and heads the rest of the way into the ship. “Where’s your mamá?”

“Making you a cup of caf,” Leia calls back. “Boots off in the house.” She doesn’t say, _those are your tactical boots._ She doesn’t say _you said you’d be back yesterday_. She doesn’t ask _where were you, really?_

And so, he says, and means every word, “I love you.”

He sets Esperanza down so he can take off the boots, and then, his coat, hanging it on the metal coat hooks Leia talked him into making. They’re shaped like tiny fish, their tails curving up to hold the coats, a stupid little detail that made her so happy. Which, is all it takes to make him happy. His baseline for comfort is that the place is safe enough that he can take off his coat, leave his blaster outside, turn off his comm channels that beep out warnings and bounties and all the information he used to live by, She’s the reason for all the little domestic touches in the U-Wing, the floral tablecloth that covers the crate which holds supplies but functions as their table, the dark blue curtains which envelope their bed, the fact there’s so much color and texture in the holding bay that had once carried troops. Likewise, Kay is the reason for at least 80% of the security updates to the ship. Both of them, he thinks, protect their little family the best ways they know how. 

Then, he heads to the table. That layout has changed a little. There’s a padded bench, more of a couch, perfect for reading with Esperanza, and a fold up from the floor table, now deployed. He sits, and Esperanza scrambles into his lap. “I color for you.” 

She’s still learning past tense, and it makes him smile. “What did you color for me?” 

She waves her data pad at him, showing him scene after seen of vaguely humanoid beings. He listens intently to her, compliments and asks questions of her drawings. She occasionally asks him questions like “were there banthas?” and “did you eat cookies?” and “did you miss me?”

It’s the nicest debriefing he’s ever had. 

Leia sets down his mug and brushes a kiss to his temple. It still amazes him, to have someone touch him like that. To come home to love and affection and warmth. A minute later the hatch door opens again.

Esperanza perks up. “Kay? KAY!”

And she’s off again, sprinting through the room to fling herself at the former security droid. Esperanza has no idea that Kay had been outside, making repairs he insisted on doing himself, alone. Because he didn’t want to keep Esperanza waiting for Cassian, but he also didn’t want her to see him with scorch marks.

It’s enough of a memory to make his hand wrap a little tighter around the mug. Instead, he tries to focus on the sound of Esperanza chatting happily with Kay. Sometimes she beeps and chirps at him in what both of them insist is perfectly valid binary, even though Cassian is about 97% certain that Kay is just humoring her.

Kay steps into sight, the child in his arms just as natural a sight to Cassian as the blaster had been, only yesterday. 

“Play dress up?” Esperanza asks.

“Absolutely,” Kay replies, which stuns him, until he adds, “I think Cassian would look very fine in a dress.”

He just sips his caf and prepares for the inevitable.

They do get him into a dress, one of Leia’s more billowy ones, and then there’s a tea party in which Esperanza spends most of her time dictating how they’re to drink their imaginary tea. Eventually, Leia brings over real sweet tea cakes and lukewarm tea, along with the promise, “Luke made them before he left.”

Ah, good. So she wasn’t alone the whole time. 

Esperanza falls asleep in his arms, holding on to Kay’s metal thumb with her whole hand. Neither droid nor man feels much like moving, and Cassian wakes a little while later, his own head slumped against K-2SO’s chasis. It’s a comfortable spot, at least, for Cassian.

“You snored.” K-2SO says.

“Mm.” He yawns. Esperanza’s still sleeping, but she stirs at the sound of his voice. 

“Papá?” she asks. “Where we going next?”

A good question. Leia’s spent three weeks here on Yavin IV, waiting for him to get back. He notices that she’s no where to be seen. When he listens for it, he hears the soft hiss of the shower in the ‘fresher. She’s probably enjoying having time to herself. “What, tired of playing with your cousin Poe already?”

She wrinkles her nose. “He is _bad_ at dress-up. He never wears a dress. Never.”

That makes an almost-silent chuckle escape him. “I see.” He pauses, and then asks, “Esperanza, do you know what snow is?”

“Snow?” she tries out the word. Shakes her head hard enough her braid whips over her shoulder. “No. Is food?”

“Not food,” he replies.

“Some cultures eat snow,” K-2SO says.

“I wanna eat snow!” 

The two of them discuss the viability of eating snow, while Cassian stretches, transferring back into a more fully awake state. Having a child means the days are long, long in a way that even most missions weren, because most missions didn’t involve taking care of a tiny agent of sheer chaos. Cassian says, “Go get the holobook about the lost little wampa, cielito.” 

She trots over to her tiny shelf and rustles through her datachips, each one labeled with a word and a picture. Leia’s efforts, not his. “Dis one?”

“That’s a bantha. Try one that starts with a W.”

She scrunches up her expression and turns back to the basket. K-2SO states, “You make that face when you are concentrating. I map the two expressions at 76% similar.”

Cassian can’t help but smile at that. He normally sees Esperanza as resembling Leia far more than him, with blue eyes that are clearly from the same strand of DNA as Skywalker’s. There’s one holo he’s seen, of a Jedi in dark robes with blond hair and blue eyes, much like Luke’s, and yet, a coldness very unlike the friendly Jedi’s. Leia had deleted the holo, though she’d never told Luke that. Cassian can’t blame her. Neither of them want to think much of the man Vader had once been. The man who was Esperanza’s grandfather, and the source of her blue eyes. He hopes, though he’ll never tell Leia, that’s all she inherited from that side of the family. Though in his dreams, his daughter’s shadow turns long and dark, and in her hand, sometimes, is a lightsaber the color of blood.

“Found it!” She races back, both data chip and children’s datapad in hand and climbs into Kay’s lap this time, wrapping one of the droid’s long arms over her shoulder. “Story time! Kay read. Now.”

K-2SO’s motors whir a little louder, obviously proud at being selected to be the reader. Cassian sips his caf and listens to the droid’s familiar voice read the story of the wampa. It was amazing how many children’s holobooks featured quite bloodthirsty beasts depicted in soft fuzzy holograms. Given that she was being read the book by a former imperial security droid, maybe that was for the best.

“Dat snow!” she pokes at the holo.

“You’re right. And those are icicles.” 

“Why?”

Cassian raises an eyebrow at K-2S0 who takes over the duties of explaining the various ways liquids freeze. “You like snow?” Esperanza says, her eyes narrowed.

“Cassian does,” K-2SO says.”It freezes my joints.”

“He not Cassi, he Papá.” she corrects, patting K-2SO’s arm. “It okay. You learn.”

There’s a pause as K-2SO tries so hard not to correct the corrector. Finally, he says, “Thank you, small Cassian. I will take that under advisement.”

Cassian returns to the earlier question. “I do like snow.” As much as he can be said to like anything, he supposes. Not that his daughter needs to know how few things in his life make him truly happy. It doesn’t matter, not when she, and the other two beings in this tiny U-Wing, are the ones who always do.

“I’m going to check on your mother.”

“Yes, you do that, okay, Papá?”

“As you wish, commander,” he teases, ruffling her dark hair. She grins up at him, which makes him smile. The gesture is starting to feel more familiar again. He wants to hope, even though he knows it’s a foolish hope, that he’ll never have a reason to forget how to smile again.

He sets his mug by the sink on his way over to the ‘fresher. Then, he presses the ‘fresher door open, and slides in. She’s wearing one of his shirts, and it’s long enough on her to brush over the tops of her thighs. There is nothing in the galaxy, he thinks, that will ever look sexier on her than that shirt. Leia moves to make room for him, her long waves of wet hair rippling. She looks at him, and every word he knows in every language simply melts away. So he kisses her. 

Cassian treasures moments like this, where bliss burns away all his fears, all his worries. Where Leia reassures him, through touch, through that one way of communicating which has always made so much sense to him, that she’s here. That he’s safe with her.

“What are you thinking?” she finally whispers, her hand cupping his cheek. 

For her, he tries to be honest. Rests his forehead against hers. Admits, “wondering if there were any fingerprint traces Kay’s scan missed.”

What no one warned him about being honest was how much more it could hurt when the one you’re honest with is pained by your words. Leia closes her eyes. “I see.”

She’s not surprised, of course. She’d seen what gear he’d packed. Her face had said, even then, _aren’t you done with that type of mission?_

He sets his jaw. There’s nothing else to say. He’s never asked for permission or forgiveness, and she’d never give either, anyway. Their work is their work, their love, something else entirely. She leans forward, her head resting on his shoulder, the same shoulder that had cradled a sniper rifle so many times, long before it had ever been a place of comfort for a lover.

“They needed Aach’s contacts. They’re still good on Nar Sh--”

“No,” Leia says, but she’s still not looking at him. “They needed you.”

“Leia, it’s not…”

She pulls away from him then. “It’s not _Aach’s_ widow that will have to bury him.”

Cassian stares at her, the past few days whirling through his mind again. It had been a comfort to sink in to the role of someone else, to be someone else with his finger on the trigger. But Leia’s right. Damn it all, she’s right.

“Is that all you were thinking?” she asks, starting to braid her hair, still not looking at him. “Anything else you’d like to report, Operative?”

It’s a barb that’s more than a little unfair, he thinks, and he leans against the ‘fresher wall opposite her. “How beautiful you look? How smart our daughter is? Why the hell we have a holobook about a friendly little wampa when one almost killed your brother?”

She looks over her shoulder at him, a real smile once more on her face. “Ask Jyn. She bought it.”

“She would. Didn’t she also buy…”

“Twelve Dancing Rancors? Yes.” Leia turns and faces him, leans forward to press against him. “I know what you did was necessary,” she whispers. “I saw the reports. I heard about…” 

“We’ll stop them before they rise,” he promises her. “We will.”

“Together,” she says. “We’re in this together.” When she tugs him down for a kiss, he realizes he was wrong. He doesn’t need to ask for forgiveness, because it’s already been given. 

“Thank you,” he whispers.

“For?”

“You… you weren’t mad.”

“Cassian, I was terrified.” She strokes his jaw with a thumb, shaking her head. “Any work we do against these so-called-second wave Imperials? It’s unsanctioned, it’s treason, it’s a thousand things that make this more dangerous than ever before. And we…” she trails off.

“We have more to lose, no?” he understands, in that moment. “You were thinking of…”

“Of you,” she replies. “Of what you had to go through. Of what you risked. I don’t want that to be the legacy you leave your child.”

It was so far from the answer he’d expected. He forgets, sometimes, that Leia cares as much for his own past as she does for hers. That she mourns a planet she’s never visited, as much as she mourns Alderaan. Fest is part of her heart, now, she’s said. Because he is. 

That thought muddies and twists with his others, with teaching Esperanza the word snow, with a childhood memory of waiting for his own father to come home from a mission. Of mittened hands scooping up fresh-fallen snow, of learning to pack it into a ball, and of the rumbling laughter from Jeron Andor as Cassian pelted him with the snow-missiles. 

When his thoughts turn to how a few years later, his hands had no mittens, just tattered gloves pulled out of the wreckage, how his snowballs had rocks and glass rolled into them, how they hit clone troopers with enough impact to stun… then he stops thinking. Instead, he kisses Leia again, clings to her, his hands sliding under her bathrobe. Seeking the warm skin that will chase away the chill of the past.

Later, he thinks, he’ll tell Leia what else he was thinking. That he is a child of frost and snow, and his own child only knows warmth.

But Leia’s kisses, then her touches, then warm intimacy of her body, melt him, make him sigh out her name, slump against her as pleasure spreads over him. His skin is flushed, and she kisses his panting lips softly. “Better?” she asks, shifting a little from where he’d propped her up on the sink for a better angle.

“Mm,” he mumbles against the curve of her neck.

“I should ask you to use your words.”

“Words are overrated.”

Leia laughs, and he thinks the sound is just as incredible as the noises she’d had to bite back moments ago. “Then I’ll use mine. I’m so glad you’re home. I missed you quite terribly. But I did manage to cook dinner. Twice, even.” 

He lets out a breathless, nearly silent chuckle.

She continues, stroking her hand over his back. “And everything is fine here. No problems at all, and no work to do on the horizon. So, you,” she tilts his face up, her finger light against his jaw, and kisses his nose. “Get to pick where we head to next.”

“About that…”

“Yes?”

“I have an idea.”

“Do tell me.”

“Well, I was--”

“Papá WHERE ARE YOUUUU?” Esperanza’s voice echoes throughout the whole ship. The two parents exchange a look, half knowing smile, half loving exasperation. “Mamá? Play? Play NOW?”

K-2SO calls, “Reinforcements may be necessary at this point, Cassian. Or Leia, if you are available.”

As Cassian is the one who's still dressed, he presses one final kiss to Leia’s forehead, and adds, “I’ll tell you more tonight.”

Then, he opens the ‘fresher door, and heads out into the room. 

“Papá!” Esperanza yells with glee. “YOU A WAMPA! You hide.”

For having two soft-spoken parents, Esperanza manages to project her voice incredibly well. “All right, all right, I’ll hide.” He says, moving over to his bed and tugging a blanket up over himself. She then beeps and chirps her way through a one-sided binary-ish conversation as she presumably looks for him. He shifts the blanket just enough to keep an eye trained on her. It’s odd, realizing how much his parents must have done the same. How he’d never been as alone as he’d thought he had been.

Because he’d played at hide-and-seek and pretended to be a droid, too, when he’d been Esperanza’s age. He’d covered his papá in blankets and told him he had to pretend to be a bantha. He’d played so many silly little games, back then, ones that come back to him now, as Esperanza acts them out, following in footsteps he’d had no idea he’d left behind, following as if she can see the tracks left in the snow, long before they were covered by the battalions of clone trooper’s own tracks.

He’d left the games behind on Fest, along with so many other things, like the idea of family, like the language he even now struggles with. But maybe some things aren’t lost forever. After all, he has family again. He has a home. He has stories and traditions he wants his daughter to know, the same way his parents had passed on what they could to him, before they died. Leia had said she didn’t want his loss to be the legacy left to Esperanza. Neither did he. But what, then, what could he offer her? What memories could he share, when so much his past was drenched in pain and loss?

And he knows, then, what he needs to tell Leia, tonight.


	2. names and plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leia learns just where Cassian's mission was and the two decide it's time for them to visit Fest. Memories of the past are dragged into the light. Kissing, rock-climbing, and angst.

They're busy with Esperanza until late that evening. She's tucked in and manages to talk her way into both a bedtime lullaby from Cassian and a bedtime story told in Binary by Kay. By the time Leia is done with the ‘fresher, Cassian is already waiting in their bed for her. He has a mug of tea in his hand, but passes her a small glass of red wine, and kisses her cheek. She wraps the blanket around their knees since they're still sitting. The bed is both couch and their one private spot, with the long curtains, pulled around it like a cave. Sometimes it makes her feel a little giddy like she's hiding here with this handsome rogue she still can't believe she married.

Other times, it makes her a bit nostalgic, for the memory of a full sized bedroom and a life that was not lived on a ship. But then, Cassian's free hand, warmed by his mug, travels over her shoulder, then wraps around her waist, pulling her close. She leans against him, sipping her wine before she recaps little bits of the day. The work she's doing on the peace treaty request she was recently sent, her scheduled trip to see Luke, some updates about the most recent election. She doesn't mention the fact there are a few former Imperial officers, pardoned by their home planets, up for election. Cassian knows, she's sure of it, and discussing it is to bring war back into their peaceful nest.

"Esperanza's never seen snow," Cassian says.

It's such a strange non sequitur, which means he must have been pondering it for a long time."We could visit the mountains, the next time we're on Naboo."

An expression crosses his face that normally only appears when she tries to tell him that she's an excellent cook. Leia folds her arms, waiting. Finally, he says, "Real snow."

"Naboo's snow is quite real."

"It's… melty."

That makes her nearly spill her wine as she turns to try to look at him because whatever facial expression the stern, serious Cassian Andor makes when he says the word melty is one she wants to remember forever.

"Does have Cronde have proper snow?"

He shrugs, blowing ripples across his tea. She tries again, liking this game. It reminds her of when they used to pick planets to visit by holo dartboard, searching for a home. Maybe even then, they'd known home was each other."Or Ojom?"

"It's a frozen ocean," he scoffs. "Hardly good snow there."

"I'm amused _ _ocean i__ s the drawback for that one and not occupied Huttspace."

"Oceans mean beaches," he retorts. Given the sheer-life changing impact of two beaches on him, Leia forgives him that. Cassian continues, "And you know I'd never bring you near Huttspace." His tone is the same as a line in the sand and she loves him all the more for it. Remembers how furious he'd been when they came to the Senate and Leia had been asked to apologize. Remembers how he'd held her when she'd cried from the nightmares. Remembers that Cassian is not the only one with wounds deeper than canyons in his past.

"Rion has snow now," Leia says, with the same ache she feels for all those planets devastated by the war. Sometimes she wonders if she's the reason it had dragged out. If she had gotten the plans to Obi-Wan herself if the Death Star had been destroyed sooner. If.. if… If. "Syned?"

Cassian says nothing, his lips press into a narrow line. Syned, which had been deeply loyal to the Empire. Syned, which probably still held Imperial sympathizers. Syned, which had snow and mud that might match the bit of mud clinging to the bottom of Cassian's tactical boots even now.

"Toola?"

He shakes his head, but at least the ghost of whatever he'd done to protect peace has flown from his eyes.

She tries again, "Diado?"

"You'd spend time with more of us dangerous former Seppies? I'm honored." He presses a kiss to her temple with the tease.

Trying again, Leia finds the name Csilla makes Cassian blush, or at least, the tips of his ears, which is quite a blush for him. and prods. "Fond memories of a Chiss in the snow?"

He raises an eyebrow at her. She kisses his nose, which usually flusters him a bit more, on the rare occasion he blushes. She'll get the story about Csilla out of him someday.

But when that furrow on his brow appears, Leia regrets the tease. "He was a good man. You would have liked him." She squeezes his hand. A lost love, then, or knowing Cassian, an almost-love. He doesn't need to say anything else. She knows his type. Probably one rare Chiss, rebelling against the Ascendency.

"Let's get back to the list." Though she thinks it's a good sign he's finally started to provide information about past missions, without nearly as much prodding. "Garnib has glaciers,"

"Doesn't necessarily mean nice snow."

"I had no idea there was such a quality scale on snow," Leia retorts, lightly.

He answers her with a look.

"True. I do remember your mission reports. I'm not sure there was a single variable that you didn't assign a ten point scale to." She taps her chin, in mock thought. "Didn't you even assign a scale to how wildly-off-mission Luke went?"

The shadows vanish from his face. "No. Just for how many times Solo claimed he'd do the impossible."

"His favorite activity," It's her turn to blush, just a bit, as memories she'd rather not discuss with her husband flicker in her mind. "Anyway, tell me more about our targeted snow quality."

Cassian closes his eyes, resting his head against the wall. Leia snuggles in, enjoying the rumble of his voice, "Mm. Bright. White, not grey at all. " He's clearly thinking hard, and it's odd to see his recalling-the-past-expression mixed with real happiness in his voice. "Big flakes. The sort that you can see the fractals on when they land on your coat. Soft. You know, builds up into nice drifts, the ones you'll want to jump in, not slide over it."

"I'll want to jump into it?"

He opens his eyes the slightest amount. "Well, Esperanza will."

Leia hopes, with her whole heart, that Cassian will too. She still remembers their tiny honeymoon, late last year, when they'd left Esperanza with Kay, and snuck away. Or rather, she'd convince Cassian they had a small mission to do, but the mission went awry in the best possible way, leaving them snowed in and stuck in the otherwise empty Antilles family ski lodge. She'd only planned for quiet and romantic time stretched out in front of the fire, but instead she'd gotten lessons in snowshoeing, snow-candy making, and a good deal of other snow-related activities, all from a Cassian who was warmer, lighter, less weighed down with all his pain, than she'd ever seen him.

So, if this quest to find the most perfect snow for their daughter makes him smile like that again, then it's completely worth it. "What about Nelvaan? I've heard the horax threat is all but gone these days."

His expression shifts, his jaw clenching.

Ah. One of those planets. "I'm sorry," she begins. She hadn't thought it might bring up memories. After all, there'd been no real conflict on Nelvaan, only… only imperial diplomats. Of which, she guesses, Cassian must have been one. Leia reaches up to stroke away the tension in his cheek, kisses above his fuzzy stubble. "There is no shame in anything you've done," she whispers. "Everything, every fight, every loss, it helped us win."

"No," he rasps out, and the sound tells her just how bad Nelvaan must have been for him. "Not everything."

"Cassian."

He shakes his head, his eyes squeezed tightly closed. His hand, still in hers, trembles, and she recognizes all the signs of deep pain, of him falling through the cracks again, plunging deep into the past. It happens so rarely these days, she'd thought… she'd thought he wouldn't break again.

But he is broken, and he's never pretended to be otherwise for her. She'd never ask him to. So, she does what she's learned to do, what he's asked her to do, in times like this. Runs her fingers through his hair. Whispers to him. "You're Cassian Jeron Andor. You're my husband, and I love you more than all the stars in all the galaxy. You're a good man. You're safe."

At those last words, he collapses against her. Leia holds him, laying them both down on the bed, keeping her arms around him. "You're safe here," she whispers, pressing a kiss to his temple next. Her hand strokes down his arm, and she tries to channel all those warm thoughts into him. He shakes harder. "I did… I had to keep the cover, on Nelvaan."

"And you did," she promises him. Squeezes his hand. "You survived, so you could complete your mission."

"I did," he echoes, weakly.

Leia taps into the ebb of power coursing through her, the Force that can work miracles as often as it can destroy, and imagines it flowing from her into him, easing him, healing the rifts like shatterpoints on a fault line inside of him. Cassian lets out a shuddering sigh. "You completed your mission," she says again. "You're home now."

"I am home," he lifts his head. There's a softness, an innocence in his eyes that she hates because she only sees in moments like this. When she knows it's a softness that's always part of him. It's simply part of him covered by too much scar tissue, hidden from everyone except her. He shivers in her arms. "Leia?"

"Right here, my heart." They're not much for words of affection, but sometimes, one slips out.

"I don't want to go back to Nelvaan."

"Then we won't." She kisses his forehead, and he shifts just enough to catch the corner of her mouth with his return kiss. "Do you want to tell me more about what makes good snow?"

"Mm." His response is a distant one, as his own hands wander down her body, seeking that physical contact that grounds him after times like that. "Good snow… someplace where it doesn't melt and make a mess. No mud."

"No mud," she agrees, glad there's more clarity in his voice, less pain in his eyes. "We'll find just the right place, my heart, and then, we'll go there. And you can show me how to jump in the snow." Leia talks, gives him silly comments, stories,to focus on, until his shivering stops. Then, Cassian looks up at her, entirely clear-eyed again, the terrors of the past once again locked away where ever he keeps them. He doesn't answer with words, but with passion. Leia meets him there, finds him in the heat that he offers, holds him close.

When they're both nearly asleep, Cassian speaks, making Leia's heart jump like it had leaped into a snowbank itself. "It has to be Fest, doesn't it."

He says it so quietly, he's not sure if he's speaking to himself, or to her, as she's nodded off, curled around him in the bed. "Huh?" she fakes drowsiness. "Did you say something?"

"Fest," he whispers back. "We should… we have to take her there."

She notices he says there, not home, and she wishes she could do anything to fix that gap between two places inside of him. "Then we will," she agrees, giving him a little squeeze. "As soon as we plan it out, we can go."

"Mm. Plans. Talking dirty to me this late at night, Organa?"

"Plans… data charts… graphs…" she punctuates each word with a kiss down his neck. "Should I keep going?"

He turns in her arms to give her all the answer she needs, and everything, from the past, to data charts, to Fest, fly from Leia's memory as surely as snowflakes in a blizzard.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, she wakes to find Cassian at the table, his datapad next to his mug of caf. K-2SO leans over his shoulder, pointing to something on the screen. Cassian nods and jots down a note. His fingers fly over a second, smaller datapad, the one that connects directly to K-2SO's communication systems, allowing them to communicate via written messages. Mainly because K-2SO doesn't sleep and Cassian barely does. Which means they'd had plenty of accidental Esperanza-wakeups in everyone's first days of getting used to the change in their shared space. So Cassian got to work problem-solving and a few weeks later, the messenger pad was made.

Whatever they're working on today is intense enough for Cassian to have run his hands through his hair enough to create an utterly chaotic (and very tempting) tousled mess. Leia watches for a moment longer, before padding over and kissing his cheek.

He's not surprised, he's probably known she was up from the moment her eyes opened, but the corners of his eyes crinkle in his own soft way of smiling.

"Good morning Kaytu," she adds. "What are you two working on?" Leia steals his mug and takes a sip, accepting the overly-sweet taste as the price to pay for the distraction. Because she can't bear to hold her breath as she waits, hoping the answer isn't another mission.

"Shopping list," Cassian says.

"You? Shopping? I'm impressed."

"I survived Life Day."

"Two years ago."

"If you'd like, I can give the quilt to someone else and go buy you a blanket to prove my ability to shop."

Leia glares at him, and smacks his shoulder playfully, "You can go and get a different wife too, if you do that." That quilt, made from all the scraps of the uniforms, the dresses, the bits of her past too worn to wear and too close to her to lose, keeps her warm in so many ways. Because there are patches of his old uniform, too, both an officer's dress coat, (since he'd worn everything else the Alliance had given him to pieces) and small pieces from the light blue shirt he'd worn as her official guard. When he's away, Leia can only find rest with the blanket wrapped over her shoulders, a weakness she has admitted to no one.

"Based on your legal certificate, Cassian," K-2S0 adds, "you cannot do that without completing--"

"I know, Kay," Cassian shakes his head. "And I would never, not even if my wife manages to scald another one of my cooking skillets beyond repair." There's a playful brightness in his eyes, but her guilt still makes her face redden.

"I… forgot it doesn't go in the oven."

"So I saw," Cassian's arm wraps around her waist, capturing her, keeping her right next to him, right where she wants to be. "Lucky for us that I can cook and you can forge peace treaties between three long-warring nations. I think that matches us evenly, no?"

His jokes are a balm to her heart after his pain last night. "We are well-matched, I agree. Now, tell me, what's on this shopping list."

He passes over the datapad. It's a good start, mostly focused on winter supplies for Esperanza that they'd need someday anyway. Meal bars, new gloves for her, a few other small items. "We'll have to leave Yavin for some of this."

"I could swoop by a couple places," he shrugs. "There's some used markets on…"

"Let's just order it all new," Leia replies. "It'll come nicely boxed up."

Cassian gives her a raised eyebrow look over the mug. Leia returns it. Cassian shakes his head. "New stuff will look too conspicuous there."

"Their trade has been booming for--" Leia stops herself. Because the raised eyebrow has disappeared, as has the faint smile in his eyes. Now there's just that walled-off coldness, that fridginess that had taken her years to melt. Leia thinks back to what she's said. Understands now that Cassian didn't hear it as a discussion but as a critique.

"Seeing as you're the __expert__ on Fest…" Cassian begins.

"That was not what I intended, and you know it."

There's a whir of motors and K-S0 announces, "I am leaving. For a walk. At least. I am saying I need a walk. Which I do not require, I just do not wish to be around you two at this present time." The droid clomps past them, opening the hatch door a second later.

There's a flicker of exasperation on Cassian's face now. Leia reaches out, cupping his cheek, refusing to let this tiny flare of old pain hurt them. Cassian leans into the touch. This is how they work best. Silently, almost secretly, neither of them ever saying more than a quarter of all the thoughts they have, but showing every one of them with warm contact. She strokes his jaw with a thumb until the lines of worry fade.

"It's your home planet," she finally says. "I cannot begin to know it the way you do."

Cassian swallows keeps his gaze on her though his posture gives every indication he wants to run, to hide. Leia doesn't mind. She knows, better than almost anyone, how overbearing the ghosts, the memories of a long-gone place can be. "It's not my home. You are."

"And you are mine." Leia’s lips brush his cheek. "We can buy the goods used. Wherever you want."

"I-" He begins. Stops, his gaze darting over to the corner where the toddler bed is hidden by a screen, giving her a degree of privacy and peace. Maybe other parents could be suprised by a child waking, but not one who’d spent lifetimes monitoring quiet rooms for new sounds. "Esperanza's up."

"I'll get her," Leia says. "You should comm Kay and let him know the coast is clear."

That gets a glimmer of humor from him, which feels like a victory given the current battle they're facing. It's their family, small, strange, loving, versus the overwhelming pull of Cassian's past, and Leia has no idea which one is going to win.

Cassian is still working when lunchtime rolls around. K-2SO, meanwhile, has read _ _The Lost Little Wampa__ sixteen times. This time around, the droid says, "Given your amount of exposure, I infer that you would be able to recite this book back to me."

Esperanza leans up, pats his cheek. "You do it," she says sweetly. "You good at it."

Even from here, Leia can hear K-2SO's motors whirl, in that way that means he is both delighted and baffled. The droid has yet to figure out, Leia thinks, that Esperanza has completely wound his coils around her tiny finger. "I am capable of reading, yes."

"No!" she shakes her head, her hair flying into her eyes. As usual, Esperanza had managed to undo Leia's careful braids for her in a matter of minutes. "You GOOD at it. You GOODER than Papá an' Mamá."

"Well, in that case," K-2SO sits up a little straighter. "Where were we? Ah, yes. The lost little wampa went up up up the mountain and the lost little wampa went down down down the mountain and the…"

 

Leia tunes out the familiar story, but her smile remains. She sets out food, left over from one of her few edible meals she's made, and is just pouring glasses of juice when Cassian comes back up from the former munitions hold, now workshop-supply room. There's a dust in his hair. Leia reaches up on tiptoes to brush it away. It makes her smile, wondering if this is where their daughter gets her tousled hair from "How are we on supplies?"

"Better than I thought. We'll need some specific oils for Kay, and gear for Esperanza, and maybe we can get a used snowspeeder?"

"And put it where?" Leia raises an eyebrow. Their rapid outgrowing of the U-wing is half joke, half concern at this point, with Leia lobbying a bit more for them to pick a place and settle down, at least some of the time, and Cassian digging in his heels, that no place is home, beyond the confines of the ship But just maybe, she thinks, their home might be on Fest.

"We've almost finished the additional room down there…" he rubs his chin.

The additional room they'd soon move Esperanza into. Leia supposes it's not the worst place to store a snowspeeder. "That's fine. They've got a good resale rate, I'm sure we can pass it off to some merchant in one of the towns there."

"Towns?" Cassian's lips narrow.

"I assumed we'd…" she sighs. "I see. Just the snow on Fest. Not the people."

"Leia... " He begins, runs his hand through his hair, tries to say something, and stops. She counts his breaths, waits. Fest freezes him in so many ways. When she'd been expecting, she'd almost thought it would do what war, what politics, what their shared and separate pasts hadn't done, and tear them apart. This time, it's Cassian who offers a treaty, taking his plate and eating a forkful of the meal. "This is good, you know. Actually, very good."

"It's cheese, noodles, and sodium," Leia laughs. "And all I had to do was add water."

"You added water admirably then."

After that, they keep Fest out of the discussion for the rest of the day, and the night.

But Leia's questions grow, even as their trip plans become more and more definite. Cassian has no problem updating star charts or checking the older, weaker bits of the ship to make sure she's ready for a long jump into hyperspace, but trying to get him to mention anything of Fest, any bit of what to expect is impossible. As impossible as holding a snowflake for more than a moment, Leia thinks. As impossible as the past always is for them.

For the first time, Leia wonders if there's more to Cassian's fears. She knows he has his secrets, that he always has them, kept them close as if they might keep him warm. Leia knows because she does the same. __Darth Vader fathered me__ , she’d told him. __Darth Vader destroyed my home.__ But she hadn’t said, __and I swore in that moment to destroy him.__ She hadn’t said, __I’ll never forgive him the way Luke has.__

Leia doesn’t say, __I have dreams of flames and ice and sickly green light. Dreams of the destruction of planets we both loved. Dreams of our daughter inside another Death Star. Not as prisoner but as commander. Cloaked in shadows, wrapped in rage. The heir to all the darkness of the Skywalker name.__

Leia doesn’t say, __I need your planet, your family to be ours, because my family, my heritage, my past, terrifies me.__

The problem is that his past is starting to scare her too. Not the past they share, not the dark missions he took for the good of the Rebellion. Those things, she knows. Perhaps all too well. But Fest… his family there… what isn't he telling her?

Because as much as she says she's the strong one, as much as she pretends she's not broken. She is. Broken in a thousand ways, held together only because that is what she's always done. Hold herself together. She comforted Luke instead of facing her own loss. Kissed Han, offered those three words to him, instead of admitting she was terrified. Whispered encouraging words to the other slave girls as the gold collar snapped onto her neck, instead of crying as they did. Leia does not break. She gives. Gives and gives until there's nothing left inside of her, and only inside that emptiness does she feel she knows herself.

Right now, she's not sure how to give, how to heal him, how to comfort him. Because she knows too well that you can't give a planet back to someone.

* * *

 

On the third day since his return, Cassian takes Kay and Esperanza to the Dameron's. In part for the company, Leia knows, and in part, because if anyone knows where to acquire supplies for a more dangerous than usual trip it's Shara. It's been a while since the U-Wing had traveled to the outer rim. It's been even longer since they've traveled to a place not yet cleared for peaceful visits by the Senate. At least, together. Both of them have taken quiet, secret missions, told only to the other in a whispered moment or not at all.

Leia remembers her childhood, remembers how she never knew when Bail would be home or when he would be simply away and she hates that is what both of them are becoming to their daughter.

What is it that Cassian remembers of his parents? Leia knows about Jerón, at least as much as anyone in the Rebellion did. The man had been nothing more than a mugshot and a brief write up about the protest at Carida to everyone Leia knows. But the mugshot, which she's never told Cassian she saw, also shows a man with the same dimple on his right cheek that Leia's daughter has too. A man with the same eyes as her husband.

It's enough to make her look at the entry again. She pulls it up on her own datapad. While the file loads, Leia snags a bit of fruit, then walks outside. It's a sunny day on Yavin IV, and she thinks, maybe, the warmth of this sun will keep away the chill of the past.

The only mention of Jerón Andor is a note from Mon Mothma, sent on official channels to General Draven.

 

__Davits._ _

__I thought this information would be useful to you. One of my contacts mentioned that Cassian Andor he looked familiar. I was able to have_ _pull this mugshot from the Carida Academy uprising. Jerón, (only name given) clearly has ties to your newest recruit, given the middle name Cassian has printed on his files. The man was killed on the second day of the protests. No action needed, but I find many times, information is power._ _

__May the Force be with you._ _

 

Hurrying to use the time while he's gone, Leia taps through a few more screens. There's so little about him, even under his darknet official files, even with all her access codes in play. How could it be? She knows him, knows at least some of the missions he's been on, and there's nothing. Nothing beyond the fact a man named Cassian Andor enlisted at 17 (hah) and was decommissioned at 30. As if he could ever be taken out of commission. They'd tried that, hadn't they, (though much later than 30,) and she'd nearly lost him.

So why was nothing there? Leia taps on the top corner, zooming in to his picture. He's younger than she ever knew him at, and there's an earnestness to his expression she's never seen. "Where are you?' she whispers to this phantom version of her husband.

"Try looking under Andorrez."

* * *

 

The chill in his voice freezes her. His voice, not a ghostly echo from the past, but his real, familiar, voice. Cassian is here, and has been watching her for… how long? How had she not... of course. Of course, he was a spy, is still perhaps one, given his latest missions, and of course he can sneak up on her. Force, what a fool she'd been thinking she could do this. That she could, that she had any right to pry into his past.

She looks up, to see him above her, leaning against the frame of the U-Wing, watching her with a sharpness she's only used to seeing directed at other people. People he doesn't trust. It's a sharpness that pulls his features into high relief, his whole body going tense. His eyes like the scope of a blaster, his hands tucked into pockets, mostly likely, Leia realizes, so their shaking doesn't betray him.

"I've got an alert set for whenever my file gets pulled, Leia." He spins on his heel. A moment later, the U-Wing door slams closed.

"Cassian!"

There's no answer. She yells his name again, her guilt oozing into the words. She should have known better. She shouldn't have looked.

But he doesn't return.

She's shaking, now. Shaking like the chill has set into her very bones. Worse, she knows this new hurt was all her fault. "Cassian, please."

The U-Wing door stays shut.

She should go after him? No. She'd done wrong. She'd been wrong to look. This is her fault. Leia closes her eyes as the pain washes over her.

There's an old High Aurebesh tale of a young woman who was given in marriage to a princess or a god, or maybe something in between, Leia can't remember. The marriage contract had had only one rule. The young woman must never go to the southernmost tower, and look out the southernmost window. A silly rule, perhaps, but a rule nonetheless. The two were happy, the tale said. Happier than sunlight on a rippling lake, happier than anyone has ever been, since. Until curiosity got the best of the woman, and she darted through the house, climbed the stairs, climbed, climbed all the way to the top of the tower. Even there she had one more chance. Because the window was draped with heavy fabric, blocked by more than just dust. But the woman persisted, tore down the fabric, scrubbed the windowpane, and looked out, looked South, beyond their castle, beyond their home. Beyond all her heart knew.

All she saw, the tale said, was every pain her spouse had kept away from her. Every bit of heartbreak, every loss. The window held it all.

The secret, the window, the tower, it had all been to protect her. Her spouse loved her, loved her enough to hold everything bad away from her, to keep her safe, and in her foolishness, she had broken her own heart. The story ends in tragedy, all tales written in high Aurebesh do. The woman, the tower, the window, well, that's a tidy end any poet can rhyme.

But Leia is no poet, and this is not their story's end.

When there's nothing left for her to give, no pretty words left for her to offer, then, Leia does the one thing she always can. The one sure thing, the one thing that's never left her is a fire, deep, deep inside her. She's a fighter, even more than she's a healer or a leader. The hardest foe to fight, though, is herself. She wrestles her doubt, her shame, her embarrassment down, tucks it all away, and storms around the corner, fist ready to knock on the hatch door...

...which is already swinging open.

 

Cassian darts to one side, as quick as ever, which is good, because otherwise, her fist would have landed somewhere near his cheekbone. "Leia!" his voice is half shock, half concern.

"I planned to knock."

"Knock me out?"

"Hah. Clever." Her voice is still a little clipped. The fight's not over. She has to win against her own embarrassment and shame. She has to do this. "I'm sorry. Cassian. I… I should have left your past alone."

His hand cups her cheek, his thumb running along her jaw. "Ah, the past never does leave us alone, though, no?"

Force above and below, she loves him. Loves him more than she loves to burn, loves him more than she knows how to offer in return. Loves him recklessly and impatiently, and furiously. Giving up on her words, Leia reaches up and kisses him. Hard.

Cassian staggers back, his hand going to the small of her back, keeping her there. Kissing her in return the way their first time had been (not their first kisses, no, those had been nearly a High Aurebesh level of proper and chaste), wild, and bright, and so warm. Because he's on fire too, the same way she burns. They'd only come to each other when their light, their flames, their torches of conviction, were no longer needed by anyone else. The Rebellion succeeded. The Senate survives. What more was there for them but each other?

They finally, finally disentangle themselves, both of them blushing, with the end results of their kisses clear in disheveled clothes and mussed hair. Leia kisses his cheek, as sweetly as she can. "I am sorry."

Their hands find each others, and only then, does she realize he's kissed her this whole time with only his right hand free. His left holds a leatherbound bag. She's trying hard to be less curious, so she doesn't ask. "Let's go for a walk," he says.

Esperanza is completely safe with K-2SO, of course, so she agrees. "Andorrez?" she asks, as they make their way down the path.

"Mm." He nods. "Casiaño Jerón Andorrez."

Leia stop walking. The knowledge she'd been married to a man for three years, loved him for at least thrice as long as that, and had never known the name he was born under... But she'd seen him, that day they'd married, seen him write Cassian Andor on the paper. He'd promised her it was his real name. He's not the type to make false promises. 

"He's long gone," Cassian moves in front of her, cups her cheeks. Kisses her, an echo of that earlier heat rippling through them both. Leia reminds herself this is him. This is the man she married, the man she loves. The past doesn't matter, in the end. "I'm just Cassian. I'm just…"

"What?"

"Yours," he admits, shyly. His cheeks reddening above his scruffy beard. "I never… that name hasn't been mine in a long time."

"Still better than Leia Skywalker."

"Is it?" his fingers linger, sliding into her loose strand of hair, drawing out the moment of blessed intimacy. If they can still touch like this, they can heal, too.

"She never existed."

"Perhaps," his lips brush her forehead next. "What is a name, after all? We are all starlight given form."

"Poetry, from you?"

His nose wrinkles, his own adorable inability to wink showing. She presses up on tiptoes to kiss his nose, deciding to leave the discussion of names behind. Tugs on his jacket collar, keeping him close to her for a few more moments. Overhead, a kitehawk cries, swooping low. Leia's heard the sound so many times, in so many lifetimes. As has Cassian, she knows. Understands even more now, realizing he's left lifetimes behind, ones she's never even known of. Cassian asks, "Up for a climb?"

And she knows exactly where they are headed.

* * *

 

There are many smaller Massassi temples on Yavin IV, beyond the Great Temple they'd both lived in, in one of their lives. The nearest one to the Damerons, and therefore where the U-Wing sits, is a relatively low, crumbling one. From its peak, though, one can see all the way back to the Great Temple, and on some days, Leia thinks, back, into the past. They climb up the rocky foundation. It's a clear, bright day, and the climb leaves neither of them winded. There's a ledge Leia likes to think of as theirs, one that they've watched their fair share of sunsets from. Settling down there, Leia rests her head against his side.

"You know, I almost miss running laps on days like today," he says.

"I used to be so jealous of you all," Leia says. "I would have loved to run on a day like today.'

"I'm not sure our fragile egos could have handled being outpaced by a princess." He teases, bumping her shoulder with his. Saying, __we're in this together now.__

A while later, she asks, "how long did you live here, at Base One?"

Cassian blinks, shrugs. "Years." But he soundlessly repeats those last two words. Adds, "we always just called it home. I forgot it had an official code. I… should have remembered that." Then, he leans over, to the bag he'd brought and she'd forgotten about. He goes inside the bag, and she's not sure what to expect will be in his hand.

All it is is a simple, slim key, the old fashioned kind. He offers it to her, but the key itself is not what freezes her.

Cassian has a multitude of scars. Some she knows the story of, others, she's read the mission report behind. But some she's never been given any clue of, like the old, old mark on his palm, stretching across the lines some Correllians swear tell you everything about your life.

The key is a perfect fit to the scar.

Leia's hand goes to his knee. She offers no words because nothing can be said. Finally, he speaks. "There's nothing left. Nothing more than this. A key, with no door. What's the point of a name if there's no one to call it?"

"Talk to me?" her voice is a gentle plea.

"The bombs… they… shavit, true incinds, the stuff that…" he looks up, high at the clouds. "The stuff that Ororan, Dodonna, all of them swore they'd never used."

His words pull old faces from the ether, faces of white-bearded men Leia had seen as kindly uncles. Men who wore the tactician's overcoat and spoke in measured voices around the command table. Men who had the same soft accent, and the same history as her own father. Alderaanian men. Good men, who had fought in the Clone Wars, then fought for the Rebellion.

Men who might have given an order to bomb a factory town, on a cold, cold world, very far from their comfortable home planet in the Core.

"That's why it's hard to tell me?" she asks, her fingers running down his wrist. To his scarred hand, holding the key between them. "Because…"

"That's why I can't think about it," he admits.

The men who led the Rebellion he would have died for might have been the same to have ordered his family killed. Cassian is two broken halves, Separatist and Rebel and no one had the time, or the care, to graft those pieces together.

They sit for a long time together on the ancient ruins. Leia rests her head on his shoulder, and eventually, he shrugs out of his jacket to wrap it around her.

She protests. "You'll get cold."

"Ice in my blood," he retorts. It's true in more ways than one, but there's a tiny smile on his face. She strokes that smile, scratches his stubble in a way that still feels incredibly intimate to her, a secret, like her little pouts or his love of licorice candies, that remains hidden to all but them.

"I love you," she says because though she's said it with many things today, she hasn't used her words.

"And I you." He presses his lips to the top of her head. "And our whole family. Who we should be getting back to."

Soon. They'll return to their other roles, as parents, soon. For now, she just wants to be his lover. Wants to take this moment to watch a sunset they'd both saved from the destruction faced by Jedha, Scarif, Alderaan. They'd both bled for, suffered for, nearly died, for this small moment of peace on this remote lmoon. She runs fingertips along his jawline. "Did your father have a beard?" It's a bold move, but she has to know. For the sake of that peace.

He nods.

Good.

"At least from the mugshot of him I saw."

Not so good.

She tried. Force, though, it hurts. She presses her face to his chest to hear his heart. "He'd be so proud of you."

"Would he?" Cassian sighs. His fingers tangle in her hair. "I wish I knew, Leia. I wish I knew."

"My father was proud of you," Leia whispers. Offering. There's only one man she uses the word for and it's not the man who had slaughtered those soldiers on Tantive IV. It's the man who gave his life to the cause, the same way Cassian had. "When he'd told me the plan, for Operation Fracture…"

"Bail was a good man," he agrees. "I… Draven and he had their disagreements…"

Leia wants to point out that there weren't many being in the galaxy that Davits Draven hadn't disagreed with, but decided that was a topic for another time. Draven, for all his flaws, had been a father figure to Cassian.

He continues, "but I… I'm honored to know he... " Cassian shakes his head. "He was wrong, but it's appreciated."

"Cassian!" Leia shakes his arm. "No. I said what I said."

"And I," he taps his chest. "Know how few of my mission reports actually got in front of him, in front of the others. I did terrible things. I don't deserve--"

She stops him with a kiss. Demanding, hard. "I deserve you, Cassian. We all do. And we've all done terrible things in the name of the greater good. You know that. You do. How many times…" She breaks off, rests against him, "I thought…"

He sighs. "The mission…"

"What did you do there on Syned, Cassian?" She begs because he hasn't been this bad in years. Nothing she'd said or done has shaken the darkness from him. What had the others asked of him, what had he done to try and stop the so-called First Order from rising? They'd fight, of course, they would, all of them, they'd bleed and die to preserve this hard-won peace, but damn it all, Leia is tired of her family always being at the heart of the fight. Just once, she thinks, and feels so guilty for thinking it, she'd like to be a small nobody with a tiny destiny. Some simple woman on some calm planet. Just once, she begs the Force. Let this suffering pass by us.

"The same thing they did to my family." He whispers."Kriff, it's...it's harder now. It…"

He bends low, pressing his head into her shoulder. He shakes. She knows well he can't cry, not tears, no matter how much he aches to. The few times, the only times she'd seen him cry, she'd nearly lost him. She won't lose him now. That folktale, that tower, that is not their story.

"Galen Erso was a father too," Cassian whispers.

That name leaves a long, cold chill in the air. Deep like the emptiness of space. Deep like all the lives lost to the Death Star and all the lives saved by its destruction.

* * *

 

Galen. Bail. Jeron. A Jedi Leia refuses to name, not even in her thoughts. All of them, though, fathers. And all of them, gone now. Whatever lessons they'd tried to impart, whatever legacy they'd wanted to leave, had they done so? Were they proud of their children after all? And Darth Vader, the man who the Jedi had become, what legacy did he leave in her family?

Was Fest just a glittering distraction to all this? Leia wets her lips. She needs to tell him. Needs to share what had happened while he was gone. She doesn't want to share that any more than he wants to provide details of his mission. Hadn't they hurt enough? Didn't they deserve peace too?

Leia studies Cassian. In the twilight, he looks like the Fulcrum Agent she'd met him as, (a year after she'd met him as Willix, though she'd not put those two together for many more years). All nobleness of brow, and softness of expression, a perfect mix of strength to fight for the future and the tenderness to ensure that future would be a better one. But if she looks closer, she sees the man she loves now, the one whose shoulders ache with the weight of all the Rebellion had asked him to carry, the one whose eyes have seen far too much, for far too long.

But the one, too, who has learned to laugh, to smile, again. Leia decides its that she needs to focus on, to summon his joy once more, to drive away the shadows of his past. Leia says, "You climbed that cliff over there shirtless once."

Cassian lifts his head, stares at her in utter bafflement. It's enough to break the spell of the memories, to return him to her.

"It had to be you because you because Kay waited below, timing you.” As if every bit of that scene hadn’t been memorized, the wind in his hair, the muscles rippling on his back as he reached up for another hand-hold..

"Leia."

“I know, I know. I was __young__ and you were a __soldier with a job__ ,” Leia retorts the same long suffering grumbling he does whenever she shares one of these stories. “You still looked very nice, shirtless. Regardless.”

“How long were you __watching?”__

Leia smiles as an answer. Smiles, like a Loth-cat with a bird in her mouth. Smiles, because though trouble looms in the past and in the future, there are moments of true joy in their lives. Not the least of which, she thinks, is knowing that the most handsome operative in the entire Massassi group is now all hers. Given how much Cassian is already blushing, though, Leia decides not to tell him just how many swoony-eyed young rebels were watching him climb that sunny day.

He stands, offers her his hand. "I apologize for having the audacity to wear a shirt today. I'll make it up to you tonight."

It's more than just physical intimacy he's offering with his hand, with his words. He's taking the humorous bait she offered, allowing her to walk him back from the darkness of the past. Together, they pick their way back down the temple steps.

They're silent, but move, hand in hand. She thinks back to the key he keeps in his bag, the scar on his palm. Thinks of her Alderaanian blankets and paintings, the necklace he'd gotten her, the dresses she refuses to box up in storage. How much she carries of her own past, her own now-gone home. Is that another luxury, perhaps? To never have to truly lose all that she loves? Or is she the fool, because no blanket, no dress, can bring back the hands that had once given the item to her, that had once held her? They're all just things. The memories, too, those are barely even tangible these days, fading away like steam.

But Cassian is real, and he is here. "I looked at your father's mugshot. So you know."

"I assumed you would." Pauses and his hand is still so warm in hers. "I'm not upset."

"He looked like you. And I know he would be proud of the man you are now."

"Mm, I don't know." The smile he offers her is a gift worth more than all those items from her old home. It's intimate like an embrace, letting her in, giving her that key, letting her walk through the doorway into the past with him, his smile the only light in the dark. "I did end up married to a RepRich girl."

She playfully smacks his shoulder with a free hand. He catches her wrist, spins her in a move she knows would be dangerous if he'd had a weapon in his other hand. The end result is that she's trapped against him, his arms holding her tight. She laughs, delighted to see the humor in his eyes.

Because there is any number of insults that a man like Jerón could have said about Leia, daughter of Padmé Amidala Naberrie, Leia, Core World princess, raised by heroes of the Old Republic. But Cassian had picked the most meaningless, the silliest one, used only in holodramas these days.

"No, he would have liked you," Cassian says, "you and your love of those epic poems, he'd have been thrilled by that. I think. I… I guess so? I… we had holobooks… everywhere growing up." He bites his lip, struggling to find his words. But the struggle, Leia thinks, is better than surrender. "Someone told me once that he'd gone to University. Not--not a military one. Altra. Our--their capital." Some of the words he stutters through aren't in Basic, but Leia translates what she can and ignores the rest. "For a degree in Comparative Literature. That's what his degree says. I saw a holoscan of it."

He falls silent.  _Poetry, from you?_ Leia's words echo back to her. Had his father loved poetry, then? He certainly must have loved his son. His son, who loved him so much every word, every thought about him, brings pain. Cassian's shoulders shake, each breath like the tide to Leia, pulling her back toward him and away. She's not sure when she should speak. What she should say. So she holds him and waits. Eventually, he nods, and wordlessly, they begin to walk again.

When they're nearly home, he speaks again. Leia wants to tell him it's okay, that he doesn't need to say anything else, that if someone as mundane as his father's degree made him shake like a dying man, they can leave the past alone. But he's talking, and so, she listens. "He laughed a lot," Cassian says slowly. "And he smelled like... cheap cigarras and moto-oil and... licorice candies."

Leia thinks of the foil-wrapped sweets she's found in his pockets for years and says nothing. Schools her face to betray nothing, but memorizes these bits of Jerón, memorize this small bit of his past that Cassian is sharing.

"He worked in a shop repairing droids. Farming ones, mostly. A few astromechs. Helped me rewire one for my fourth birthday," Cassian continues. "When he'd get home, Mamá was always after him to wash his hands before hugging us."

There's only one word in that story Leia truly hears, and it's enough to freeze her. _Us?_

She stops walking.

 

He looks back at her. She remembers how hard this is, so she squeezes his hand and says nothing. Thinks back to the folktale of the woman and the tower and the curiosity. At the same time, her heart fractures, a thousand tiny sharp pieces spreading through her blood. Every commander knew Operative Andor had lost his parents. Just as they'd all known that if he was assigned to their mission, nothing would stop him from completing it. That'd he would bleed and break and die for the Rebellion if they'd asked. (and oh, how they'd asked) But no one had ever said, ever even hinted, there had been more to his family, more lost, than just his parents.

Who had they been? Leia, an only child for so much of her life, had never thought to consider Cassian might not have been one. She tries to imagine others, a sister with his high cheekbones and gentle grace. A brother, with the same scruffy beard, maybe in a different shade of brown. A sibling, as loving, as kind, as good, as him.

She keeps her thoughts to herself. Curiosity kills, she tells herself. He's forgiven her past questions, she doesn't need to pry anymore. She reminds herself of the tale of the woman in the tower.

But, maybe she, just like the woman, is too stubborn to listen to a wise tale. They come home long after Esperanza is asleep. Almost wordlessly, they stumble into the ‘fresher, together. Strip themselves of their clothes the way she knows they both wish they could strip their secrets, their past, from their beings. It's a wonderful feeling, to be so warm, to be so close to him. There's something incredibly intimate about letting him wash her hair, his fingers sliding through the cascading locks.

There's something intimate about every moment between them when they're alone. Both of them had been so touch-starved, so cold, for so long, that they take every opportunity to offer the heat of passion to each other.

That night, she curls around him in bed. He smells like fresh soap, a bit like the cloudberry berry conditioner she uses and the most like the sharp citrus tang of his aftershave. He smells like home. She whispers, "How many siblings did you have?"

"Five," he whispers back. His shoulders shake, but his voice doesn't, and she wraps her arms around him tighter.

Imagined faces flash through her mind. Each one hurts like a burn. So much family, lost forever. "I wish… I wish I'd known. We could have named her after…"

"We did."

There's nothing more she can say to that. She presses one last kiss to the back of his neck and lets him slip away to his dreams. Begging the Force to make sure, for once, no nightmares trouble him.

* * *

 

In the morning, she cannot give him back Fest, cannot give him a family beyond the one they have. But she can do three things and does. First, she calls Jyn, inviting her to meet up with them in a few days. Then, she makes sure the ship is ready for a jump. And then, she leaves his favorite breakfast, his caf, by the side of the bed next to his datapad.

Which he'll need for her last thing.

He'd said Bail would never respect him. He'd said, in so many words, that he was unlovable. And he'd nearly forgotten how to smile. So, she offers him one of the best memories she can, one of the small proofs of his goodness she's clung to. It's an old message, typed and sent on a secure private channel between Leia and her father. They'd been the only two with access to it, and blessedly, thankfully, Artoo had backed up the whole channel into a drive. Leia flips through the messages sometimes, smiling at all the silly things she'd thought vital to tell her father. All the bits of wisdom he'd tried to impart on his impulsive, stubborn daughter.

All the tiny hints of a life long gone.

It's one of those messages she forwards to Cassian, on the secure channel that she shares with only him (and Kay. It's impossible to keep Kay out of things, so Leia doesn't try.)

When Cassian wakes, Leia watches from across the room, where she is feeding Esperanza breakfast, to see him open the datapad, to see bafflement, and then, finally, a smile like the dawn, appear on his face. The past holds joy, too, and perhaps that is the only way to fight all the pain that lies in wait for them in its depth. They'll go forward together, hand in hand, and she will not let Cassian forget how to smile. She has loved him under different names before and she will love him under any new name he chooses. After all, they are each other's, and they are home.

__Leia,_ _

__Thank you for your note, and for sending those cookies. It's hard to find Cinavesh spice here, so they are much appreciated with my morning caf. (Don't tell your mother that I have more than one cup a day though. You know how she worries)_ _

__As for your other comment, our mutual friend Fulcrum is a good man, certainly, one I hold in highest regard. As you stated, yes, he is quite trustworthy, polite, and someone I would trust with your life. However, I must note three things._ _

__1\. He is decidedly too old for you to take as an escort to the dance._ _

__2\. You are not permitted to attend any balls, masquerade or not, until you apologize to your aunts for the incident at your sixteenth birthday last month_ _

__3\. What, for the love of the Force, is the word "starizz-moonwoo-swoony" and why is it used in connection with his facial hair?_ _

__With all the love in all the universe,_ _

__Papa_ _

At the end of the forwarded message that Cassian is still reading, Leia had added,  _you're still_   _starizz-moonwoo-swoony to me, my heart._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are the thing that keep me writing (well, that and my UNLIMITED FEELS for this couple) so please feel free to comment.  
> Huge thanks to my amazing betas for this chapter.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to AntChan for the beta, and RogueShadows for all the shouting/planning/everything for this 'verse.  
> This is set about a year after [Gifts and Hopes ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17192816/chapters/40425455) if you want to read that one first  
> Comments are both welcomed and adored.


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